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When you lend When you lend somebody money, they usually have to pay you for the privilege. That has been a bedrock assumption across centuries of financial history. But it is an assumption that is increasingly being tossed aside by some of the world’s central banks and bond markets. A decade ago, negative interest rates were a theoretical curiosity that …

Jack Rasmus undertakes the first of a two part deep examination of the terms and conditions of the actual TPP agreement recently concluded. The origins and true functions of free trade agreements is explained, beginning with the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system, the IMF, and World Bank established by the US, the role of trade in US global dominance to the 1970s, the restructuring of trade and money flows in the 1970s, and the advent of Neoliberalism in the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher. How free trade became the international lynchpin of US neoliberal policies, beginning in the 1980s and expanding ever since under both Democrat and Republican administrations. Obama as the biggest advocate of Free Trade thus far is explained. Jack then begins a section by section analysis of the 30 chapters of the TPP, with an overview of provisions associated with ‘goods’ trade, investment, financial services, intellectual property and Pharmaceuticals, and the Disputes Settlement/Corporate Global Courts system section that will undermine domestic democracy and sovereignty and lead to a new drive for global corporate supra-political institutions. In Part 2 next week, further details of the 30 chapters, and reactions by labor, environmental advocates, food safety groups, and others will be reviewed—as well as reports by organizers of the Nov. 18 national US protests against the TPP.